 friends welcome to my channel I'm Arpita Karva and in this video I'm going to talk about another age in the history of English literature. Last video we discussed the age that was named as the Jacobian age named after the main king who was ruling during that period. His name was James I. Now we are moving forward and looking at the Caroline age. Caroline age again is named after the king who was ruling in this period and his name was Charles the first. Now Charles the first was the successor of James the first. James the first first son died so the second son Charles the first took the throne in 1625 and he was the only king in the entire history of Britain who was beheaded a king who was beheaded can you believe it and now you would be wondering that okay what was the reason why this king was beheaded and it is very important for you to understand the reason before we move on and look at the literature produced during this period because literature as we all know is extremely influenced by the socio-political condition of a country. So let us first look at the political background a little bit and then we are going to look at the literature produced. So Charles the first was a king who was always in continuous battle with the people of England. So the normal people of England they followed Protestantism. In England there are two religions one is Catholics and one are Protestants. Now all like all countries these two sects don't like each other they are always fighting with each other. The fundamental English Protestants are also known as Puritans so please don't get confused. We have Catholics and Protestants. Protestants can also be known as Puritans. There's a slight difference but that is not very important at this point. What you need to basically understand are these two sects and England at that time when Charles the first was ruling was filled with Protestants people. So Protestants was the main religion you would say of the country and this king Charles the first decided that he is going to marry a Catholic princess. Now everybody was shocked because they thought that if a Catholic princess comes to our nation the next ruler will be a Catholic and then all the Protestants would be executed. So they were extremely angry with the king. So the first reason why people who upset with Charles the first was religion. Second Charles the first was a very very brutal king. Earlier in England ship tax was you know given by the coastal states. So basically it was a tax that was used in order to take care of the navy. So in order to keep the navy in place, sustain them, give them food they have to take a tax from only the coastal states and that tax was known as the ship money or ship tax. Charles the first said that no matter where you belong in Britain everyone has to pay ship tax. People again got upset that why people living in the plains have to pay the ship tax. They are not even using the navy but Charles the first said that no matter what navy is protecting you so you have to pay ship tax. So second reason was money that upset the people and the third reason was the tyranny of Charles the first. Charles the first was so much against the people of the Britain as well as the parliamentary people. All these MPs and MLAs that we have in India very similar to that there were parliamentarians who were there in the parliament of UK and this man Charles the first was against these people because parliament were not liking Charles the first. So Charles the first's supporters they were called royalist and opposite to royalist we have parliamentarians. So royalist and parliamentarian again these people were in constant battle with one another. So what this man Charles the first did was that he asked that the parliament cannot meet the regular meetings of the parliament that happened every year he restricted those meetings for 11 years. Can you believe for 11 years Charles the first was ruling like a dictator like a tyrant and people were so upset that this man is ruling the entire country without listening to the MPs MLAs that people have elected that we don't want this man and finally there was a civil war that started and Charles the first was beheaded. Now as far as the civil war and the interregnum period is concerned we are going to talk about it in the next video when we are going to look at the civil war and interregnum period but for now just remember the kind of conflicts that were happening in England during the Caroline age. Now that we have discussed the political condition of Britain during the Caroline period it is time to look at the major literary works produced in this period. If we talk about poetry then there are two major kinds of poetry that was produced during this period one was religious poetry more or less you could say that comes under the heading of metaphysical poetry because religion was a very very important theme when we look at the metaphysical poets. Now the second kind of poetry is the poetry that we know today as the Cavalier poetry or poetry written by the Cavalier poets. Now who are these Cavalier poets? Cavalier poets are the poets who were the courtians that means who were living in the court and they were supporters of Charles the first. So these people were courtmen and these poets they were actually talking about romantic love, sensual love in their poetry very different from how metaphysical poets were writing. So if you look at the themes of metaphysical poets then you would say that these were moral codes they were talking about moral codes they were talking about science they were talking about religion they were talking about spirituality on the opposite hand we have Cavalier poets they were talking about living for the moment you know YOLO that means you live only once you just have to seize the day. Carpe diem the most famous term that a lot of literature students love to use as their Instagram bio. Carpe diem actually comes from the Cavalier poets one very very simple meaning of Carpe diem can be seized the day you just make the best use of the day you live all the pleasures that is possible and you just live freely without any foundation without thinking about what is right what is wrong. So you can see how different are metaphysical poets and the Cavalier poets. Also what you need to understand a very important fact which very few people know Cavalier poets were influenced by Ben Johnson and they were so deeply influenced that Cavalier poets are known as son of Ben's that means Ben Johnson ko itna imitate karthe ki aisa lattai ki unhi ke bete hai. So that is the reason why they are called as son of Ben and this was a question that was asked in net exam so you must know that the Cavalier poets are also known as son of Ben. Now there are some very very famous lines from Cavalier poetry which i would like to discuss next and i would also appreciate if you guys can go and watch this amazing movie Dead Poet Society because if you watch that movie you will come across all these lines that i'm going to talk about next because all these lines are so close to the heart of English professors this movie is really really wonderful any person who is studying literature must watch it it is filled with literary references the students and the teacher the professor there they talk so much about Shakespeare Wordsworth and a lot of Cavalier poets so make sure you watch that movie and use the quarantine time okay so now that i'm talking about Cavalier poets and famous lines i cannot stop but talk about my favorite poet and he is Robert Herrick so there's this very beautiful poem written by him to the versions make much of the time now this poem is basically an address that you know Herrick is making to all these versions out there and he's saying that you know just forget all your moral codes just forget whether it's right or wrong to make love before marriage but just indulge in the affair of love so that you can feel and enjoy this moment and there's this beautiful line that you would also find Robin Williams saying in Dead Poet Society next in line is Thomas Carrier who has written an elegy for John Dunn so he was very very inspired by John Dunn and he loved John Dunn so when Dunn died he actually wrote an elegy talking about how he would now have nobody to look up to and he has no inspiration now that John Dunn has died and next in line is one of the most amazing poets who has a little bit of history connected to prison his name is Richard Lovelace now this man was sent to prison again and again why because he was a supporter of Charles the First and whenever Charles the First had a battle with the people of England he was captured and thrown into the prison for the of every time why because people hated him just because he was a favorite of Charles the First so from prison he used to write and one very great poetry that he has written is to Althea from prison where there's this beautiful lines that stone walls does not make a prison just like iron bars does not make a cage beautiful line and beautiful poem so if you have time just make sure that you google these beautiful poetries and read them once to get a flavor and tinge of cavalier poetry now those of you who are thinking that Alpata has spoken so much about the poetry is written in the caroline period when is she going to talk about the dramas i am so sorry to disappoint you because i would not be talking about dramas in detail because not a lot of dramas were written during this period this period saw a sharp decline in the quality of dramas and right after this period when we are going to enter into the civil war and interregnum period you will see that in 1642 an act was passed by the parliament which stated that no theater activities is going to take place so theaters were banned were closed down from 1642 so you can see that Britain being a country which produced great plays like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear actually saw a period where no great plays were written but that is how it is because protestants as i mentioned were really orthodox in their religious views and they thought that theater and literary activities corrupt the mind of people and take them away from religion and that is the reason why people were absolutely against theatrical activities in this particular period though i would just like to mention two dramatist and one work written by each so that you can just get a hint about this period's drama one of them is John Ford now uh John Ford is somebody who has written a drama called it is a pretty she's a war and then we have James Shillay who has written a comedy named Hyde Park so these were the two dramatists who wrote specifically during the caroline period during the ring of Charles I so with that note i would like to take your leave i have got detailed lectures about each and every writer poet dramatist prose writer which is important from UDC net point of view all of these writers from English literature are covered in detail in my online course the details are the same you can get on the number displayed there you can either call us or whatsapp us or you can connect with us on social media platforms we are there on instagram telegram and facebook apart from that if you have any other questions and queries related to literature or UGC net in general make sure you put that in the comments below and i'm going to definitely address those queries in my next video so that's it from my side for this lecture i'll meet you very soon in the next lecture till the time i meet next happy learning keep loving literature and stay tuned to arpitaakarwa.com